Jon Jacobs: "Is Causation a Relation?"
Jon Jacobs (St. Louis University): "Is Causation a Relation?". Listen to the talk here.
Abstract
Suppose that causal powers theorists are right: causation—at least of the productive variety—is somehow grounded in powers and their manifestations. How are the details to go? In particular, what is the nature of the relation between a substance and its power, on the one hand, and the result of the substance manifesting its power, on the other? In this paper I explore the view that the relation between them is, in fact, no relation at all. On such a view, causal, relational truths have a non-relational ontological grounds.